If only it were just Iraq, Prime Minister

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This week's call by 43 former military chiefs and senior public servants for "truth in government" touched a nerve. Already embarrassed by the failure to find Iraqi weapons it had said justified war, the Howard Government is understandably annoyed by the statement's timing. Prime Minister John Howard says any claim the Government went to war on a lie is itself a lie. Mr Howard, who has avoided the excesses of some ministers and MPs in attacking the signatories, still questioned their relevance by stating that all but one retired before September 11, 2001, and "we are living in a new world". It's not such a "new world" that principles of honesty and accountability no longer apply. The debate has also moved beyond whether governments simply lied about WMDs. The Flood inquiry may have found the intelligence flawed, but Government presentations to the public (which it did not investigate) are hard to reconcile with his finding of "thin, ambiguous and incomplete" assessments. There is still a reluctance to be frank with the public about the reasons for decisions on Iraq and their consequences. That is why Liberal candidate Malcolm Turnbull made news just by canvassing the possibility of the war being an error.

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The broader political challenge the "truth in government" statement presents is that it invites reference to a pattern of deceptions dating back to the first Howard Government contrivance of non-core promises. A government can be deceitful by omission, misrepresentation and blurring lines of responsibility. In doing so, this Government has undermined Westminster principles of ministerial responsibility and an independent public service. Last year, Mr Howard himself misled Parliament (about meeting a senior ethanol producer), thus ensuring his minister, Wilson Tuckey, survived a similar offence. In the "children overboard" debate of the 2001 election, at least one senior minister and key advisers failed to correct a claim they knew to be false. The Prime Minister's defence was that no one, not his minister, none of his advisers, not one of the defence officers who knew the truth, told him. That alibi was reprised this year to explain wrong denials of previous knowledge of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The Government has barred advisers and military officers with direct knowledge of such matters from giving evidence to parliamentary committees. The Age would expect Labor to honour its undertaking to ensure such advisers appear. Labor also said this week it would extend fixed contracts and scrap bonuses requiring ministerial approval to help restore top bureaucrats' independence. It was the Hawke Labor government, however, that flung open the door to politicisation when it gave the prime minister power to sack department heads without explanation. In any case, rules alone cannot ensure "truth in government". This depends on the integrity of the government of the day and should be a vital consideration for voters. The Government has this week betrayed concern at how it might be judged.